do assure you, Mr. Crowfield,” said Miss Featherstone, “I never saw such little economists as your daughters; it is perfectly wonderful what they contrive to dress on. How they manage to do it I’m sure I can’t see. I never could, I’m convinced.”
“Yes,” said Jenny, “I’ve bought but just one new hat. I only wish you could sit in church where we do, and see those Miss Fielders. Marianne and I have counted six new hats apiece of those girls’, —new, you know, just out of the milliner’s shop; and last Sunday they came out in such lovely puffed tulle bonnets! Weren’t they lovely, Marianne? And next Sunday, I don’t doubt, there’ll be something else.”
“Yes,” said Miss Featherstone, – “their father, they say, has made a million dollars lately on government contracts.”
“For my part,” said Jenny, “I think such extravagance, at such a time as this, is shameful.”
“Do you know,” said I, “that I’m quite sure the Misses Fielder think they are practicing rigorous economy?”
“Papa! Now there you are with your paradoxes! How can you say so?”
“I shouldn’t be afraid to bet a pair of gloves, now,” said I, “that Miss Fielder thinks herself half ready for translation, because she has bought only six new hats and a tulle bonnet so far in the season. If it were not for her dear bleeding country, she would have had thirty-six, like the Misses Sibthorpe. If we were admitted to the secret councils of the Fielders, doubtless we should perceive what temptations they daily resist; how perfectly rubbishy and dreadful they suffer themselves to be, because they feel it important now, in this crisis, to practice economy; how they abuse the Sibthorpes, who have a new hat every time they drive out, and never think of wearing one more than two or three times; how virtuous and self-denying they feel when they think of the puffed tulle, for which they only gave eighteen dollars, when Madame Caradori showed them those lovely ones, like the Misses Sibthorpe’s, for forty-five; and how they go home descanting on virgin simplicity, and resolving that they will not allow themselves to be swept into the vortex of extravagance, whatever other people may do.”
“Do you know,” said Miss Featherstone, “I believe your papa is right? I was calling on the oldest Miss Fielder the other day, and she told me that she positively felt ashamed to go looking as she did, but that she really did feel the necessity of economy. ‘Perhaps we might afford to spend more than some others,’ she said; ‘but it’s so much better to give the money to the Sanitary Commission!’”
“Furthermore,” said I, “I am going to put forth another paradox, and say that very likely there are some people looking on my girls, and commenting on them for extravagance in having three hats, even though made over, and contrived from last year’s stock.”
“They can’t know anything about it, then,” said Jenny decisively; “for, certainly, nobody can be decent and invest less in millinery than Marianne and I do.”
“When I was a young lady,” said my wife, “a well-dressed girl got her a new bonnet in the spring, and another in the fall; that was the extent of her purchases in this line. A second-best bonnet, left of last year, did duty to relieve and preserve the best one. My father was accounted well-to-do, but I had no more, and wanted no more. I also bought myself, every spring, two pair of gloves, a dark and a light pair, and wore them through the summer, and another two through the winter; one or two pair of white kids, carefully cleaned, carried me through all my parties. Hats had not been heard of, and the great necessity which requires two or three new ones every spring and fall had not arisen. Yet I was reckoned a well-appearing girl, who dressed liberally. Now, a young lady who has a waterfall-hat, an oriole-hat, and a jockey must still be troubled with anxious cares for her spring and fall and summer and winter bonnets, – all the variety will not take the place of them. Gloves are bought by the dozen; and as to dresses, there seems to be no limit to the quantity of material and trimming that may be expended upon them. When I was a young lady, seventy-five dollars a year was considered by careful parents a liberal allowance for a daughter’s wardrobe. I had a hundred, and was reckoned rich; and I sometimes used a part to make up the deficiencies in the allowance of Sarah Evans, my particular friend, whose father gave her only fifty. We all thought that a very scant allowance; yet she generally made a very pretty and genteel appearance, with the help of occasional presents from friends.”
“How could a girl dress for fifty dollars?” said Marianne.
“She could get a white muslin and a white cambric, which, with different sortings of ribbons, served her for all dress occasions. A silk, in those days, took only ten yards in the making, and one dark silk was considered a reasonable allowance to a lady’s wardrobe. Once made, it stood for something, – always worn carefully, it lasted for years. One or two calico morning-dresses, and a merino for winter wear, completed the list. Then, as to collars, capes, cuffs, etc., we all did our own embroidering, and very pretty things we wore, too. Girls looked as prettily then as they do now, when four or five hundred dollars a year is insufficient to clothe them.”
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